^C    ISfi    flEM 


LOAN  STACK 


far  /  ?0 

LECTURE  ONEASHION: 

DELIVERED  BEFOKE  THE  NEW  YORK  LYCEUM, 

BY  N.  P.  WILLIS. 


I  HAD  thought — as  is  thought,  perhaps, 
by  many  who  are  now  before  me — that  the 
subject  of  fashion  was  one  susceptible  only 
of  very  light  handling— to  be  treated  with 
humor,  anecdote,  satire,  and  possibly  some 
moralizing  upon  its  whims  and  follies.  I 
commenced  the  preparation  of  my  lecture 
with  scarce  more  design  than  this. 

It  was  suggested,  very  sensibly,  I  thought, 
by  one  of  the  gentlemen  who  waited  on  me 
with  the  invitation  to  lecture,  that  the  sub- 
jects were  usually  too  dry ;— that  it  would 
be  worth  while  to  start  a  new  range  of 
popular  addresses— if  not  upon  trifling  to- 
pics, at  least  upon  such,  as,  conveying 
information,  would  still  bear  embroidering 
with  trifles. 

The  subject  of  fashion  was  instanced  and 
approved.  I  thought  I  might  easily  enter- 
tain an  audience  with  a  history  of  the  follies 
of  fashion  in  diflferent  countries  and  times, 
and  that  in  the  hearer^s  keener  appreciation 
of  the  absurdity  of  fashionable  extremes, 
from  seeing  them  in  the  ludicrous  light  of 
disuse  and  distance,  might  lie  the  utility  of 
such  a  lecture.  Those  who  are  familiar 
with  the  literature  of  the  sixteenth  century 
will  remember  that  the  fashions  were,  at  that 
day,  the  great  target  of  pulpit  eloquence — ■ 
that,  with  a  vein  half  humorous,  though 
with  violent  denunciation,  the  clergy  de- 
tailed the  follies  of  fashion,  and  dwelt  upon 
their  sinfulness ;  and  that  more  particularly 
in  New  England,  in  the  Puritan  days  of 
Cotton  Mather,  this  great  Divine,  and  others, 


held   forth  on   this   subject   with  the  very 
extremity  of  wrathful  fervor. 

A  reference  to  the  serious  books  and  to 
the  sermons  of  that  period  would  sufficiently 
show,  that,  had  I  followed  out  my  original 
intention,  and  taken  the  fashions  themselves 
for*  the  text  and  burthen  of  my  lecture,  I 
should  not  have  lacked  for  grave  precedent, 
nor  for  material  and  inference,  worth  the 
while  of  both  speaker  and  hearer.  The 
fashions  are  not  my  theme,  however.  Fash- 
ion is — and  between /a^^ioTi  and  the  fashions 
you  will  at  once  comprehend  the  distinc- 
tion. Of  the  importance  of  the  subject,  in 
the  light  in  which  I  view  it,  you  will  be  the 
judges  when  you  have  heard  me  to  the  end 
—but  I  may  say,  by  way  of  bespeaking 
your  favorable  attention,  that  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  few  topics — short  of  religion  and 
constitutional  law — to  be,  at  this  period  of 
our  country's  history,  of  greater  importance 
to  us.  Before  entering  upon  this  generali- 
zing view,  however,  let  me  say  a  few  w^ords 
on  the  fashions,  as  to  the  degree  with  which 
they  affect  the  standard  of  true  taste — in  this 
same  degree,  giving  Aveight  and  color  to 
fashion,  in  which  taste  and  elegance  are  of 
course  prominent  features. 

The  origin  of  fashion  would  probably 
start  even  with  the  history  of  taste.  The 
first  hour  of  a  community's  existence — if 
created  full  grown,  like  the  family  of  Deu- 
calion and  Pyrrha — would  betray  differen- 
ces in  the  demeanor  of  men ;  and  the  most 
graceful  and  showy  would  probably  be  'Uhe 


408 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


fashion,"  by  acclamation.  Taste  is  instinc- 
tive, and  homnge  is  paid  irresistibly,  by  all 
human  beings,  to  supremacy  in  elegance. 
The  rise  and  progress  of  fashion  up  to  its 
present  condition,  however,  is  not  uniform- 
ly a  history  of  taste.  What  are  more  con- 
tradictory  than  the  caprices  of  fashion  ? 
There  are  certain  standards  of  beauty,  deci- 
ded upon  by  the  common  instinct — stand- 
ards which  artists  irresistibly  follow,  and 
which  the  eye  invariably  acknowledges 
true,  and  these  standards  are  as  often  vio- 
lated as  adhered  to,  by  the  votaries  of  fash- 
ion. The  ladies  very  well  know,  that,  be 
their  faces  long  or  short — be  their  forms 
queenly  or  fairy-like, — there  is  but  one  in- 
exorable size  and  shape  for  a  fashionable 
bonnet;  and,  of  course,  if  one  style  of 
beauty  is  favored,  all  others  are  unbecom- 
ingly marred.  The  male  figure,  it  has 
beeA  decided  by  centuries  of  progressive 
art,  has  its  laws  of  beauty, — but  in  the 
fashions,  of  what  age  of  civilized  Europe 
have  not  these  laws  been  violated. 

Strange  to  say,  and  worth  speculating 
on,  if  we  had  time  for  a  digression,  it  is  only 
in  the  semi-barbarous  nations — in  modern 
Greece  and  Turkey,  and  among  the  indolent 
and  unthinking  tribes  of  the  Asiatics,  that 
costume,  once  regulated  by  art,  remains  in 
unchangeable  good  taste — comfortable  and 
convenient,  as  well  as  picturesque  and  be- 
coming. But  look  at  the  fashions  of  Eu- 
rope. Positively  the  most  incredible  true 
books  with  which  I  am  acquainted  are  the 
amusing  records  of  the  fashions  of  the  last 
two  hundred  years  in  England.  White 
periwigs  of  enormous  bulk,  were,  for  in- 
stance, the  fashion  for  ladies  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  an 
accredited  fact,  that  there  died  in  London 
in  1756,  a  white-headed  old  woman  of  great 
age,  whose  hoary  hair,  cut  off  after  her 
death,  sold  for  fifty  pounds  to  a  ladies'  peri- 
wig maker.  Black  patches  on  the  faces  of 
court  beauties  were  the  fashion  in  the  same 
age,  and  hoops  and  high  heels — utter  de- 
struction 10  grace  of  form  and  movement — 
were  worn  by  all  ladies  with  any  pretension 
to   quality.      It   is   a   rule    of  art    that,    in 


the  male  figure,  the  shoulders  should  be 
broad,  for  beauty,  and  the  hips  narrow, 
and  it  has  been  said  in  support  of  this 
standard  that  it  is  an  aristocratic  forma- 
tion— as  those  whose  ancestors  had  carried 
burthens  would  naturally  have  large  hips, 
while  those  whose  forefathers  had  been  of 
warlike  habits  and  taken  exercise  princi- 
pally in  the  saddle,  would  be  more  devel- 
oped in  the  chest  and  shoulders.  In  the 
teeth  of  the  arts,  however,  and  of  these 
aristocratic  objections,  padded  hips  were 
the  fashion  in  King  James's  time,  while  the 
collarless  coat,  with  seams  converging  to 
the  throat,  narrowed  the  chest  and  shoul- 
ders and  gave  to  the  male  figure  the  outline 
of  the  female. 

Ridiculous  as  most  fashions,  when  not 
based  upon  legitimate  principles  of  art,  seem 
at  a  distance,  however,  it  is  astonishing  how 
unaware  the  excesses  creep  upon  us,  and 
howeasily  and  unsuspectingly  men  of  sense 
pass,  from  ridiculing  a  new  fashion,  to  ap- 
proving and  adopting  it.  It  would  puz- 
zle any  one  present,  except  perhaps  an 
artist,  to  tell,  in  a  moment,  what  are  the 
absurdities  of  the  present  fashions.  Yet 
absurdities  there  are,  that  will  be  laugh- 
ed at  fifty  years  hence,  and  you  can  easily 
detect  them,  by  applying  to  the  present 
modes  the  severe  test  of  their  utility  as 
heighteners  of  natural  beauty.  And  here 
let  me,  in  passing,  throw  a  pebble  into  the 
scale  of  art — hinting  at  the  importance  of 
keeping  in  view  the  principles  of  art  and 
true  elegance  in  adopting  the  changes  of 
the  fashions.  If  the  portraits  of  men  of 
mark  and  women  of  great  beauty,  in  our  age, 
are  to  be  painted  for  posterity,  let  it  be 
within  the  painter's  power  to  make  an  ar- 
tistic disposition  of  drapery,  without  painting 
his  sitters  in  the  unfitting  costume  of  a  clas- 
sic age,  floating  them  in  clouds,  or  disguis- 
ing them  with  cloaks  and  mantles.  We 
have  all  laughed  at  the  portraits  that  have 
descended  to  us  from  the  days  of  periwigs 
and  red-heeled  shoes.  There  have  been 
celebrated  painters,  ^vho  have  followed  the 
fashions  of  the  time  even  in  historical  pic- 
tures— gravely  representing  the  apostles  and 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


martyrs  in  bag-wigs,  and  the  Virgin  Mary 
in  hoop  and  farthingale.  There  is  no  know- 
ing how  far  the  habituation  of  monstrosities 
in  common  wear  may  corrupt  the  taste  even 
of  artists.  I  am  not  sure,  by  the  way,  that 
the  national  style  of  dress  may  not  have 
something  to  do  with  the  heroic  in  national 
character.  There  was  pride  of  country  in  a 
Roman  toga,  that  hardly  appertains  to  a  hat 
and  frock  coat;  and  Cesar's  death  might  not 
have  descended  so  dramatically  to  posterity, 
if,  instead  of  wrapping  his  head  majestically 
in  his  mantle,  he  had  fallen  at  the  base  of 
Pompey's  statue — with  his  overcoat  pulled 
over  him ! 

Leaving  the  fashions  with  thus  much  of 
notice,  I  come  now  to  the  subject  of  fashion 
— a  term  of  most  elusive  and  changeable 
import,  and  expressive  of  a  condition  of  life, 
which  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  analyze  or 
define.  Fashion  is  a  position  in  society — 
attained  by  different  avenues  in  different 
countries — but,  however  arrived  at,  giving 
its  possessor  consequence  in  common  re- 
port, value  in  private  life,  authority  in  all 
matters  of  taste,  and  influence  in  every 
thing.  Rightly  to  appreciate  what  fashion 
is,  or  rather  what  it  is  likely  to  be  hereafter 
in  our  own  country,  let  us,  without  defining 
it  further,  look  a  little  into  what  it  is  abroad. 
Let  us  see  what  fashion  is  in  France,  and 
what  it  is  in  England — for  it  is  from  these 
two  countries,  only,  that  Ave  borrow  any 
thing  in  the  way  of  social  distinctions — and 
by  contrast  with  our  future  models,  we  can 
the  more  easily  make  out  what  fashion  is 
in  the  great  metropolis  of  our  own  country, 
if  not  as  to  which  way  it  is  tending. 

There  is  wonderful  activity  of  amusement 
in  all  the  grades  of  society  in  Paris,  and  no 
one  class,  or  grade,  wastes  much  time  in 
thinking  about  the  other— differing  in  this 
respect,  (I  may  say  in  passing),  from  Eng- 
land, where  all  classes  that  pretend  to  socie- 
ty at  all,  occupy  themselves  to  any  uncom- 
fortable degree  with  gazing  enviously  at  the 
highest.  Of  necessity,  in  a  monarchical 
country,  rank  has  its  weight,  and  the  an- 
cient nobility  of  France  can  scarcely  be  said 
to  be  out  of  fashion,  though  the  verbal  ho- 


mage and  high  consideration  with  which  per- 
sons of  noble  family  are  invariably  named, 
is  merely  nominal  and  ceremonious,  and  the 
old  families,  unless  fashionable  from  intrin- 
sic causes,  are  practically  shelved  and  for- 
gotten in  the  celebrated  Faubourg  where 
they  reside.  Wealth,  too,  as  in  all  coun- 
tries, has  its  weight,  and  the  rich  man  in 
Paris  may  soar,  on  wings  of  lavish  expense, 
to  the  acquaintance  of  fashionable  people  ; 
though,  like  Icarus  with  his  wings  of  wax, 
he  drops  like  a  clod  when  his  wings  are 
melted.  The  court-circle — those  who  are 
officially  or  amicably  in  habits  of  inter- 
course with  the  family  of  the  king,  are 
not  necessarily,  the  fashion.  But  beyond 
the  control  of  either  of  these  three  pow- 
erful grades  of  society, — rank,  wealth  and 
court  favor — there  exists  in  Paris  a  sphere  of 
fashion ;  and  whatever  else  may  purchase 
admission  to  it  by  outlay  of  splendor,  or 
come  into  temporary  contact  with  it  by 
caprice  or  accident,  there  is  but  one  homo- 
geneous and  predominating  principle  in  it 
— but  one  invariable  ''  open  sesame,"  and 
that  is,  intellect!  Personal  beauty  goes  far 
in  France,  but  it  must  be  accompanied  by 
the  tact  of  being  agreeable,  or,  if  it  were 
Venus  herself,  the  beauty  would  soon  be 
ridiculed  and  neglected.  Celebrity,  of  every 
description,  is  a  passport  to  fashion.  Cele- 
brated players  and  singers,  travellers,  sol- 
diers, artists,  scholars,  statesmen  and  diplo- 
matists, range  freely  through  the  penetralia 
of  Parisian  fashion.  Nothing  is  excluded 
that  is  eminent — that  is  distinguished,  that 
can  amuse.  All  manner  of  mental  superi- 
orit}^  is  unhesitatingly  acknowledged.  And, 
intellect  being  the  constituency  of  this  legis- 
lature of  fashion,  who  are  its  leaders.  The 
manifest  controllers  of  the  tide  of  thought 
and  of  the  great  interests  of  the  present  hour 
— the  living  authors,  the  editors  of  newspa- 
pers, active  politicians,  resident  diplomatists, 
find  talented  clergy — these  are  the  influen- 
tial leaders  of  fashionable  society  in  Paris, 
and  the  indispensable  guests  at  all  fashion- 
able entertainments.  With  all  the  French 
passion  for  dress  and  elegance,  they  exact 
nothing  ornamental  in  the  persons  of  their 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


ihtellectual  favorites — in  their  admired  po- 
ets, and  artists.  They  appreciate  eminence 
in  dress  and  personal  accomplishment,  for 
it  is  a  shape  of  talent,  and  the  consummate 
dandy  has  commonly  a  passport  in  his  tact 
and  wit — but  the  lions  of  Paris  are  as  often 
ill-dressed  and  awkward  as  the  contrary, 
and  the  mere  exteriors  of  men  have  little 
lo  do  with  making  them  permanently  fash- 
ionable. A  sphere  of  society  so  constituted 
is  teeming  with  power,  for,  besides  standing 
at  the  very  fountain  of  respect,  which  is  in- 
tellect, it  is  contributed  to  by  all  the  differ- 
ent levels  of  life  in  that  great  metropolis — 
taking  to  itself  the  ambitious  core  and  spirit 
of  every  class,  rank  and  condition.  Its 
power,  too,  goes  farther  than  mere  opinion. 
The  most  conspicuous  members  of  the  pre- 
sent government  of  France,  were  first  the 
idol^of  its  fashionable  society — as  editors  of 
newspapers,  poets  and  men  of  science.  In- 
tellect like  theirs,  however  manifested,  is 
the  road  to  fashion,  and,  driven  onward  by 
fashionable  influence  and  eclat,  it  is  the 
easy  and  flowery  road  to  every  thing  desi- 
rable in  position  and  power.  Without  di- 
gressing to  look  for  the  causes  of  this  in  the 
political  and  moral  revolutions  of  France, 
let  me  say  simply  of  the  present  hour,  that 
if  there  be  in  the  world  an  indisputable  re- 
public  of  intellect,  it  is  the  fashionable  so- 
ciety of  witty  and  giddy  Paris! 

Let  us  glance  now  at  fashion  in  England 
— differing  from  that  of  France  in  some  very 
essential  particulars.  Rank,  is  more  highly 
prized  in  England.  A  man  who  is  noble- 
born  is  already  three  fourths  fashionable — 
the  remtaimng  fourth  depending  not  at  all 
on  his  fortune y  but  wholly  on  his  appear- 
ance and  manners.  A  clownish  young  lord, 
or  a  girl  who  is  Right  Honorably  plain  and 
awkward,  though  presentable  at  court,  and 
invited  for  formes  sake  to  the  sweeping 
entertainments  which  embrace  the  giver's 
entire  acquaintance ^  can  never  be  fashion- 
able, and  is  pointedly  overlooked  in  the 
invitations  to  parties  more  select,  and  very 
soon  discouraged  and  mortified  out  of  soci- 
ety. Wealth  has  much  less  influence  than 
in  France,  in  making  its  possessor  fashiona- 


ble. A  person  who  is  merely  wealthy — not 
ornamental  to  society  in  his  own  person,  is 
hopelessly  shut  out  from  the  sphere  of  the 
exclusives.  A  certain  competency,  it  is  true, 
is  necessary  to  fashion.  A  stylish  man  in 
London  must  spend  three  times  as  much  as 
would  serve  his  purpose  in  France,  in  hav- 
ing about  him  the  appointments  of  a  gentle- 
man, including  an  equipage.  But,  beyond 
what  is  necessary  for  his  own  personal  ele- 
gance, and  convenience,  he  requires  no 
riches  to  pass  freely  through  all  the  favor- 
itism of  fashion.  The  immense  number 
of  wealthy  people  in  England  has  neutrali- 
zed the  distinction  of  wealth ;  and  money, 
nowhere  in  the  world,  I  think,  goes  so  little 
way  as  in  that  country,  beyond  providing 
for  personal  luxury  and  comfort. 

Rank  and  wealth,  then,  not  being  inva- 
riable passports  to  fashion  in  London,  we 
come  next  to  the  third  social  estate — that 
of  intellect.  Your  mind  immediately  passes 
in  review  the  politicians,  the  men  of  sci- 
ence, the  authors,  dramatists,  artists — whose 
names — written  at  the  height  they  have 
attained  to,  are  legible  at  the  distance  at 
which  we  read  them — the  breadth  of  the 
Atlantic !  You  ask — has  the  genius  that 
makes  these  men  immortal,  made  them  the 
favorites  of  the  hour  they  illuminate — the 
fashion  in  the  country  on  which  they  shed 
lustre  !  When  they  are  down  from  the 
height  of  inspiration  in  which  their  wings 
were  visible  to  the  universe,  do  the  choicest 
of  fair  women  and  noble  men,  contend,  as 
in  France,  to  do  them  honor  and  give  them 
pleasure  1  No !  The  exclusive  sphere  in 
England  has  no  such  class  in  its  confidence, 
as  men  of  genius.  A  man  whose  star  has 
culminated — who  has  forced  the  world  to 
hear  of  him  by  some  undeniable  burst  of 
intellect — finds  his  way  open,  it  is  true, 
into  the  houses  of  the  nobility,  and  into 
the  more  common  resorts  of  the  fashioji- 
ables.  He  is  the  *Uion  of  the  season" — and 
what  the  position  is,  of  the  merely  intel- 
lectual lion  in  the  fashionable  circle  of 
England,  English  writers  have  honestly 
enough  put  down!  It  is  a  hell  of  in- 
visible humiliations*     Not   to   oflfend    any 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


living  author  by  sketching  his  position, 
suppose  Keats,  the  apothecary's  boy,  to 
have  returned  from  Italy,  where  he  died ; 
and,  having  outbved  the  sneer  of  the  high- 
born critic  who  counselled  him  to  "  return 
to  his  gallipots,",  to  have  become  a  lion  in 
London  society.  He  had  nothing  in  birth, 
or  personal  appearance,  to  give  him  value 
— nothing  but  incomparable  genius — that 
which,  in  all  theories  and  essays  on  the 
distinctions  of  life,  is  put  down  as  the  no- 
blest aristocracy.  He  would  have  been 
invited  every  where  !  He  would  have  dined 
and  supped  and  danced,  if  he  liked,  in  every 
nobleman's  house  in  London,  and  would 
have  been,  for  a  season  or  two,  constantly 
in  the  presence  of  the  exclusives,  male  and 
female.  But  the  entrance  to  the  noble- 
man's house,  and  the  nobleman^  conde- 
scension at  dinner,  and  the  attentive  listen- 
ing of  the  entire  company  to  his  eloquent 
conversation,  would  never  have  broken 
down  the  wall  of  glass  between  him  and 
the  ladies  of  his  host's  family  and  circle  ! 
The  belles  of  Almack's  would  never  have 
known  Mr.  Keats.  The  beauties  familiar 
with  the  dandies  of  St.  James  street,  would 
as  soon  h-ave  thought  of  feeling  a  tender- 
ness for  a  Chinese  juggler  who  had  amused 
them,  as  for  the  literary  lion  they  had  list- 
ened to  at  dinner.  There  is  an  invariable 
manner  of  uninterested  and  polite  suffer- 
ance, cultivated  for  the  express  use  of  a 
non-conductor  between  the  exclusives  and 
the  unprivileged  who  may  have  access  to 
their  resorts.  This  has  been  felt  by  every 
self-made  celebrated  man  in  England,  and 
as  most  of  them  have  been  content  with 
one  or  two  seasons  of  such  life,  men  of 
genius,  unless  newly  risen,  are  seldom  to 
be  found  in  vogue  among  the  exclusives. 

But  the  sphere  exists— powerful,  splen- 
did, and  dazzling  to  all  eyes,— the  sphere 
of  high  fashion  in  England,— and  what  is 
the  key  to  it,  and  for  whom  are  its  intoxi- 
cating triumphs  1 

In  civilization,  as  in  many  other  things, 
extremes  meet.  The  highest  possible  cul- 
tivation approaches  nearest  to  the  simpli- 
city of  nature,  and  England,  which,  at  this 


moment,  probably,  is  at  a  higher  point  of 
civilization  than  was  ever  before  attained, 
shows,  in  its  most  accomplished  circle,  the 
nearest  approach  to  nature.  The  passport 
to  fashion  in  England  is  that  which  would 
be  a  passport  to  pre-eminence  in  an  Indian 
tribe — beauty  of  person  combined  with  assu- 
rance and  a  natural  air  of  superiority.  With 
a  mien  of  graceful  boldness,  and  such  a  face 
and  form  as  would  suit  a  sculptor,  or  grace 
a  chief,  the  son  of  a  country  curate  in  Eng- 
land may  pluck  fashion  from  an  earl.  And 
the  same  with  the  other  sex.  With  no  pre- 
tension to  parentage  or  position,  above  re- 
spectability, a  girl  of  remarkable  beauty, 
let  it  be  only  such  beauty  as  would  sit 
gracefully  upon  title,  and  bear  itself  proudly 
among  the  proud,  is  marked  from  her  child- 
hood for  high  connection.  She  attracts  the 
regard  of  her  titled  neighbors,  is  taken  up 
as  a  guest  to  London,  and  made  the  belle 
of  the  season,  and,  if  an  attachment  spring 
up  between  her  and  a  man  of  rank,  the 
passion  is  fanned  and  favored  by  generous 
acclamation.  The  exclusives  rejoice  in  an 
addition  of  beauty  to  their  set,  and  the  coro- 
net is  more  graced  from  being  worn  even  by 
plebeian  blood,  more  gracefully. 

I  am  not  sure  that  this  is  not  a  commen- 
dable aristocracy — at  least  not  sure  that  the 
acknowledging  and  adopting  of  nature's 
stamp  of  superiority  is  not  the  best  se- 
cret for  the  securing  of  power  and  in- 
fluence to  the  most  elevated  class.  The 
finest  race  in  the  eastern  hemisphere — 
the  most  gallant  and  manly  in  its  men, 
and  the  most  beautiful  and  high-born 
looking  in  its  women — is  the  fashionable 
aristocracy  of  England.  The  requisite 
loftiness  of  bearing  Avhich  accompanies 
the  beauty  admired  by  this  class,  is  not 
attained  without  superiority  in  the  natu- 
ral character,  and  the  successful  fashiona- 
bles of  England  are  the  best  stuff,  I  believe 
— the  men  for  action,  and  the  women  for 
the  maternity  of  nature's  noblemen.  I  am 
inclined  to  think,  I  repeat,  that  nature's 
mark  of  superiority  is  well  and  wisely  ac- 
knowledged. The  balance  of  the  physical 
and    intellectual   endowments — the    power 


« 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


of  bold  action  on  a  level  with  other  men, 
and  with  a  superiority  that  all  men  can  ap- 
preciate— may  be,  to  the  eye  of  nature,  su- 
perior to  what  we  call  genius — superior  to  the 
concentration  of  the  whole  force  upon  par- 
ticular qualities  of  the  brain.  There  are, 
doubtless,  many  men,  wholly  undistin- 
guished, who  yet,  in  the  harmonious  pro- 
portion of  their  persons  and  character — 
in  their  sufficiency  of  brain  for  all  the  exi- 
gences of  action,  and  of  spirit  and  dignity 
to  carry  out  all  the  desirable  purposes  of 
the  brain,  are  superior  to  geniuses,  born  for 
nothing  but  to  write  books  of  fancy,  or 
made  immortal  by  a  didproportioned  devel- 
opment of  one  faculty  only.  Upon  such 
men, — upon  poets  and  novelists,  artists  and 
musicians — nature  has  rarely  put  her  legible 
stamp  of  "  first  quality."  It  has  been  the 
complaint  of  genius,  through  all  ages,  that 
its  superiority  has  not  been  acknowledged; 
and  it  seems  to  be  an  invariable  instinct  in 
human  nature  not  to  acknowledge  it,  where 
the  writer  and  his  personal  qualities  are 
known.  May  it  not  be  natural  therefore, 
to  revolt  against  disproportion  in  endow- 
ment— and  may  not  our  great  admiration 
for  authors  at  a  distance,  and  our  diminish- 
ed homage  when  we  know  them,  lie  in  the 
disappointment  we  feel  that  they  are  not  as 
remarkable  in  other  respects  as  in  power  of 
fancy — an  instinctive  feeling  that  the  ex- 
cess of  this  quality  is  at  the  expense  of 
others  as  desirable  ? 

This  is  something  of  a  digression — bu4 
before  leaving  the  subject  of  English  fash- 
ion, let  me  remark  upon  the  prodigious  in- 
fluence of  the  fashionable  class  in  England, 
and  the  likelihood  that  it  works  as  an  im- 
portant weight  in  the  balance  of  power  in 
that  country.  It  is  time,  I  think,  that  like 
the  addition  in  France,  of  the  Tiers  Etat  to 
the  political  divisions  of  Church  and  State. 
Fashion,  in  England,  should  be  named  as  a 
power,  after  King,  Lords '  and  Commons. 
It  is  a  combination — a  class — an  order — form- 
ed exclusively  from  no  other  class — capable, 
as  was  shown  in  Brummel's  time,  of  giving 
a  slight  to  the  blood  royal,  and  in  the  con- 
stant habit  of  putting  down  rank  that  does 


not  look  like  rank,  and  selecting  nature's 
favorites  from  the  people.  The  Queen 
fears  it — the  nobility  courts  it — the  people 
worship  it.  It  makes  and  unmakes  popu- 
lar idols.  It  rules  the  stage.  It  puts  down 
pretension.  It  is  always  elegant  and  lofty, 
even  in  its  oppressions.  It  fosters  taste.  It 
maintains  the  beautiful  against  the  costly, 
— and  it  has  for  its  exclusive  use,  and  with 
power  to  direct  them  alike  against  over- 
bearing authority  and  vulgar  wealth,  the 
formidable  weapons  of  contempt  and  ridi- 
cule. In  all  monarchies  that  ever  existed 
before,  the  aristocracy  have  dwindled  in 
mind  and  person  by  the  exclusive  inter- 
marriage of  noble  blood.  England  is  the 
first  that  has  made  tributary  the  nobili- 
ty of  nature,  taking  grafts  from  the  strong 
and  beautiful,  wherever  grew  strength  and 
beauty  in  the  capricious  garden  of  supe- 
riority. A  revolution  cannot  put  down 
such  a  class !  There  is  a  natural  homage  in 
the  high  and  low-born  alike,  paid,  without 
stint  or  scruple,  to  the  stamp  of  God.  The 
aristocracy  of  England,  with  all  their  pride 
and  superciliousness  towards  those  who 
crowd  upon  their  skirts,  is  acknowledged 
and  admired,  by  the  mass  of  the  people,  as 
was  never  another  aristocracy  by  its  plebe 
ian  countrymen.  The  existence  of  such  a 
class,  I  repeat,  is  important  to  the  balance 
of  power  in  England.  The  tides  of  opin- 
ion, that  would  meet,  embattled  in  oppo  - 
sing  floods — the  arbitrary  dictates  of  the  court 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  rebellious  spirit 
of  a  people  never  consulted,  on  the  Other, 
— find,  in  this  intermediate  class,  a  hr-eak- 
water,  that  is  a  continual  check  to  overflow 
and  devastation. 

The  next  step  in  my  argument  is  to  get, 
if  possible,  the  same  generalizing  view  of 
the  great  metropolis  of  this  country — to  see 
what  it  is  that  gives  fashion  and  conse- 
quence in  JYew  York.  Let  me  premise, 
however,  that  my  remarks  will  apply  to 
no  other  city  in  this  country,  nor  would 
they  have  been  true  of  New  York  forty 
years  ago.  In  cities  of  a  certain  size — 
cities  with  the  population  of  Boston,  Phi- 
ladelphia and  Albany— the  natural  claims 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


to  aristocracy  have,  at  least,  a  hearing; 
and  combined  with  wealth  and  personal 
worth,  they  take  rank  with  little  opposi- 
tion. In  a  metropolis  of  four  hundred 
thousand  inhabitants,  these  same  distinc- 
tions are  lost  in  the  number  of  claimants ; 
and,  in  what  I  have  to  say  of  New  York, 
I  confine  myself  to  the  period  since  this 
state  of  things  has  existed — the  last  fif- 
teen or  twenty  years,  during  which  the 
old  aristocracy  of  the  Knickerbockers  has 
been  shoved  aside,  by  the  enormous  in- 
crease of  wealthy  and  pretentious  popu- 
lation. 

In  the  particular  period  at  which  we  live, 
our  country  differs  from  all  the  nations  of 
the  earth  in  one  remarkable  feature — that 
of  being  in  a  state  of  social  transition  unex- 
ampled for  extent  and  rapidity — passing, 
that  is  to  say,  by  lightning  leaps  of  ambi- 
tious imitation,  from  plain  to  sumptuous, 
from  primitive  to  luxurious.  Study  the  pro- 
gresss  of  innovations  upon  the  manners  of 
older  countries.  See  with  what  reluctant 
advance,  one  by  one,  the  few  foreign 
usages  that  prevail  in  England  and  France 
have  crept  respectively  upon  those  compla- 
cent countries.  How  little  that  is  French 
there  is  in  England — how  little  that  is  Eng- 
lish in  France!  And  with  what  an  unnatu- 
ralized strangeness  these  few  outlandish 
features  are  incorrigibly  worn.  Here,  on 
the  contrary,  in  the  cities  of  America,  cus- 
toms that  would  be  twenty  years  obtaining 
foothold  in  Europe,  are  adopted  at  sight — 
domesticated  and  made  universal  in  a  single 
season.  Our  commerce  is  on  the  alert,  our 
merchants  are  novelty-seeking  travellers, 
ready  to  freight  ships  with  any  thing  they 
find  that  would  be  new  at  home,  and  we 
have  not  a  single  prejudice  in  our  national 
character  which  shuts  the  door  upon  an 
innovation.  Nothing  appears  abroad— in 
dress,  equipage,  usage  of  society,  style  of 
furniture  or  mode  of  amusement,  that  is  not 
conjured  over  the  water  with  aeriel  quick- 
ness, copied  with  marvellous  fidelity  in 
New  York,  and  incorporated  at  once  into 
national  habituation.  The  drawing-rooms 
of  our  wealthy  classes  are  types,   neither 


faint  nor  imperfect,  of  the  sumptuous  inte- 
riors of  May  Fair,  and  of  the  exclusive 
saloons  of  France.  Our  ladies  are  scarce 
thirty  days  behind  the  fashions  of  Paris.  A 
change  in  men's  dress  in  St.  James  street, 
is  adopted  in  New  York  before  it  is  detect- 
ed east  of  Temple  Bar.  The  stained  glass 
of  Bohemia,  while  still  a  curiosity  in  Eng- 
land, had  grown  common  upon  our  dinner- 
tables.  The  toys  of  the  age  of  Louis  the 
Fourteenth,  Egyptian  couches,  and  the 
carved  furniture  of  the  age  of  Elizabeth, 
have  been  in  turn  the  fashion  abroad,  and, 
of  either  style,  there  were  profuse  speci- 
mens in  common  wear  among  us,  while  the 
novelty  was  still  fresh  in  the  capitals  of  Eu- 
rope. We  copy  every  thing  w'e  can  hear 
of — import  and  imitate  instantly  every  new 
model  of  equipage — follow  every  whim  of 
society,  take  the  new  dance,  the  new  by- 
word, the  new  public  amusement, — and 
enter  heart  and  soul  into  every  rage  that  is 
handed  over  to  us,  dramatic,  operatic,  sump- 
tuary, and  literary.  This  daguerreotype  im- 
itation is  no  less  improving  in  its  results, 
however,  than  it  is  miraculous  for  its  facile 
rapidity.  We  have  beaten  England  and 
France  in  progressive  civilization  and  eleva- 
tion, three  centuries  in  one.  At  this  rate, 
and  with  the  increasing  facilities  of  com- 
merce, we  shall  soon  have  nothing  to  learn 
from  Europe,  but  what  transpires  between 
the  traverses  of  packets — and  when  that 
period  arrives,  we  shall  be,  of  all  countries 
the  most  cosmopolite — comparing  with  other 
nations  as  the  enlightened  and  liberal  tra- 
veller compares  with  the  home-keeping  vil- 
lager. I  am  anticipating,  however.  Be- 
fore saying  more  of  the  future,  let  us  take 
our  proposed  view  of  the  present — as  shown 
in  the  fashion  of  this  great  metropolis. 

Though  there  is  probably  a  greater  mar- 
ket for  the  fashions  in  New- York  than  in 
any  other  capital  in  the  world,  (from  the 
fact  that  all  classes,  above  the  lowest,  dress 
as  extravagantly  here  as  only  the  first  class 
does  abroad)  there  is  still  very  little  of  what 
can  be  fairly  fixed  upon  as  fashion.  No  one 
circle  confessedly  holds  the  power.  Of 
rank,  we    can   hardly   name  the  value  in 


9 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


New  York,  for,  coming  to  us  from  abroad, 
it  has  the  exaggerated  value  of  an  exotic — 
much  more  worshipped  here  than  where 
it  comes  from.  It  does  not  strike  me,  how- 
ever, that  we  show  any  symptoms  of  relish 
for  the  indigenous  rank  that  would  natu- 
rally be  now  taking  root  in  the  families 
among  us  most  honorably  descended.  It 
would  require  some  research  to  discover,  in 
New  York,  even  the  residences  of  those 
whose  fathers'  names  are  in  the  page  of  our 
history.  Wherever  they  are,  they  get  little 
position,  consequence,  or  fashion,  from  the 
mere  eminence  of  their  forefathers — few  of 
them  it  is  certain,  being  even  what  the  most 
conspicuous  people  would  call  "  in  socie- 
ty." I  think  this  will  bear  putting  still 
more  strongly,  and  that  I  may  venture  to 
eay  there  is  an  instinctive  hostility  to  the 
ossiunption  of  consequence  by  old  families 
and  somewhat,  perhaps,  from  a  feeling 
on  the  part  of  the  undistinguished,  that 
there  is  still  a  chance  for  competition  with 
dignities  of  so  recent  date,  but  more  from 
the  application  of  that  exacting  standard, 
by  which  merit  in  the  inheritor  alone 
makes  valid  an  inheritance  of  glory. 

In  the  absence  of  rank,  and  particularly 
in  a  republic,  you  would  naturally  suppose 
that  official  power— the  appointment  by 
public  honor  to  the  highest  dignities  of  the 
State — would  give,  to  the  family  of  the 
holder,  a  deference  that  would  make  them 
the  fashion.  Yet  you  all  know  the  value 
of  this  claim  to  consequence  I  The  Gov- 
ernor, Secretary,  Treasurer  of  the  State,  the 
Senators  and  Representatives  of  the  Sov- 
reign  People,  come  and  go  with  no  more 
eclat  than  other  men,  and  their  families  are 
no  more  sought,  imitated  or  caressed,  for 
their  official  dignity.  It  neither  makes  a 
man  nor  his  family  particularly  the  fashion 
in  New  York,  if  he  be  Mayor  of  the  city ; 
though,  in  the  administration  of  his  office, 
he  exercises  a  sway  as  powerful  for  the 
time  being,  as  many  a  crowned  head  of 
feudal  Europe.  Instead  of  fashionable  ho- 
*"^6>  paid  to  such  dignity  a»  we  had  a 
hand  in  making,  we  seem  on  the  contrary 
to  feel  for  it  a  fashionable  indifference. 


Is  it  here  as  in  France,  and  does  intel- 
lect give  consequence  in  New  York  ?  Does 
wit  in  man,  or  conversational  talent  in  wo- 
man, make  the  possessor  an  indispensable 
acquaintance  to  all  givers  of  fashionable 
parties.  Are  the  powerful  controllers  of 
public  opinion,  the  gentlemen  of  the  press 
— keepers  as  they  are,  or  might  be,  of  the 
key  of  each  momentous  to-morrow — are 
they,  in  a  country  where  the  press,  far 
more  than  in  France,  is  the  citadel  of  power 
— are  they,  as  in  France,  courted  for  their 
intellect,  and  for  the  influence  they  could 
give  to  the  class  they  particularly  belonged 
to.  Are  the  gentlemen  of  the  bar — the  gla- 
diators of  intellect — who,  in  society,  as  in 
courts  of  justice,  have  on  their  armor  of  wit, 
and  in  the  absence  of  any  class  possessing 
the  leisure  to  be  conversationists  only,  arc 
the  most  amusing  as  well  as  the  most  im- 
proving members  of  society — are  they  sought 
for  by  the  ambitious,  and  are  their  houses 
and  resorts  made  fashionable  by  their  intel- 
lect? Are  men  of  science,  distinguished 
artists,  poets,  authors,  politicians  and  native 
celebrities  generally — is  this  varied  body  of 
men,  representing  certainly  the  intellect  of 
the  day,  sought  out  for  fashionable  enter- 
tainments, courted,  and  made  friends  and 
favorites  of,  by  fashionable  women  ?  These 
questions  are  answered  by  the  reasonable- 
ness of  a  doubt — whether  one  in  ten  of 
the  most  pretentious  fashionables  of  New 
York,  have  any  definite  idea  who  are  the 
intellectual  masters  and  controllers  of  that 
grand  vehicle  of  society  to  which  they 
themselves  are — the  incomparable  varnish  I 

Is  it  then  as  in  England  1  Docs  fashion- 
able society  take  pains  to  secure  to  itself 
Nature's  mark  of  aristocracy  ?  Are  the  rare 
accidents  of  mingled  grace  and  beauty — the 
lovely  and  admirable  women  who  do  live 
sometimes  in  unfashionable  neighborhoods, 
and  do  belong  to  families  that  are  only  re- 
spectable,— are  such  ornaments  of  their  sex 
sought  out  for  embellishment  to  fashionable 
parties,  or  would  they  find  the  way  easy  if 
they  attempted  to  rise,  by  their  own  exer- 
tions, to  spheres  more  suitably  ornamental  ? 
Is  masculine  beauty— combined  with  a  look 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


9 


of  spirit,  and  a  mien  of  natural  chivalry  and 
superiority — are  these  attractions,  in  a  youth 
of  unknown  family  and  of  no  fortune,  suffi- 
cient to  give  him,  in  New  YOrk  as  in  Eng- 
land, easy  access  to  fashionable  circles,  and 
consequence  and  influence,  the  town  over, 
in  all  matters  of  taste  and  elegance  1  These 
questions,  too,  are  easily  answered  by  a  rea- 
sonable doubt — whether  a  well-bred  stran- 
ger, thrown  into  a  mixed  assembly  in  New 
York,  w^ould  not  make  blunders,  (as  he 
hardly  could  do  in  England),  in  an  attempt 
to  pick  out  the  fashionables  by  their  look 
of  aristocracy. 

Nature's  stamp  of  nobility,  then,  not  be- 
ing a  passport  to  fashion  in  New  York — 
nor  family  name  and  descent — nor  intellect 
— nor  that  official  dignity,  which  in  theory, 
you  would  say,  should  give  rank  in  a  re- 
public— what  is  the  predominating  princi- 
ple of  fashion  1  What  is  it  that  gives  con- 
sequence and  enviable  station  1 

There  is  a  condition  of  life  in  that  city, 
which  without  forming  a  definite  and  com- 
bined class,  as  in  France  and  England, 
may  still  be  called  "  the  fashion" — a  kind 
of  quicksand  of  conspicuousness  and  conse- 
quence, stable  hitherto  for  no  footing,  but 
crowded  successively  by  exclusives,  few 
of  whom  have  ever  kept  their  place  long 
enough  to  be  identified  by  public  rumor. 
The  uncertainty  as  to  who  the  fashiona- 
bles are,  is  somewhat  increased,  too,  by 
their  great  number,  as  no  recognizable  cir- 
cle ever  comes  twice  together,  and  no 
twenty  fashionables  would  agree  as  to  the 
fashionableness  of  twenty  more.  The  great 
secret  of  vogue  in  this  upper  sphere — the 
passport  to  its  conspicuousness  and  conse- 
quence,— is  not  exactly  money— not  ex- 
actly the  being  rich — but  expense,  and  the 
dressing,  driving  and  entertaining  with 
lavish  expensiveness.  Extravagance,  here, 
takes  the  place  that,  in  France,  is  given  to 
intellect,  and  in  England,  to  the  nobility 
of  nature.  It  is  true,  that  even  under  this 
dynasty,  it  has  not  invariably  been  as  diffi- 
cult as  now  to  tell  who  were  the  leading 
fashionables  of  New  York.  Fashion,  from 
time  to  time,  has  made  head  and  taken  a 


stand,  and  within  my  own  memory  of  New 
York  society,  fifteen  or  twenty  years,  there 
have  been  eight  or  ten  confident  and  estab- 
lished aristocracies.  They  have  risen  and 
fallen,  duly,  w^ith  "  the  stocks" — but  never 
before,  after  the  break  up  of  a  Board  of 
Fashionable  Directors,  has  there  been  so 
prolonged  a  state  of  anarchy  as  exists  at 
this  moment.  The  great  convulsion  in 
Wall  street  in  '36,  scattered  the  last  defi- 
nite combination  of  "  people  necessary  to 
know;"  and  since  that  time  there  has 
never  been  a  circle  that  was  not  rivalled 
by  twenty  others,  nor  have  there  been 
any  leaders  of  fashion,  nameable  without 
a  smile  to  two  consecutive  believers. 
Fashion  there  is — the  fashion  as  I  said 
before  of  conspicuousness  in  expense — but 
it  is  a  commonwealth  without  govern- 
ment or  centre — without  limits  or  barriers. 
Any  body  belongs  to  it  who  spends  up  to 
the  mark,  and  if  there  are  any  two  who 
have  combined  to  be  exclusive,  or  make  "  a 
set" — it  is  by  no  means  generally  suspected! 

This  state  of  promiscuous  pomp,  how- 
ever, cannot  long  exist.  It  would  not  have 
existed  till  now,  if  money  alone  could 
make,  again,  a  potentate  among  fiishion- 
ables.  The  ambition  to  be,  as  the  French 
say,  *^  the  cream  of  the  cream '^  is  not 
wanting.  It  never  sleeps.  But  money — 
mere  money — is  omnipotent  no  more  !  The 
setting  up  of  an  equipage,  the  adopting  of 
crest  and  livery,  and  the  giving  of  balls  and 
dinners,  can  but  make  a  man — now — one  of 
five  hundred.  Not  till  this  five  hundred  is 
decimated  to  fifty,  by  some  other  superi- 
ority, that,  w^ith  the  aid  of  money,  can  make 
itself  paramount,  and  not  till  that  fifty  is 
decimated,  still  again,  to  five,  who,  by 
the  consent  of  the  fifty,  shall  be  their  lea- 
ders and  rulers,  will  there  be  a  fashion  in 
New  York,  worth  courting  or  fearing.  Is 
this  a  consummation  to  be  wished  ?  I  think 
I  can  show  you  that  it  is ! 

The  very  core  and  essence  of  that  which 
constitutes  a  republic  is  the  first  principle 
in  fashion — rebellion  against  unnatural  au- 
thorit)^  What  would  be  the  state  of  Eng- 
land at  this  enlightened  day,  with  no  coun- 


10 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


terpoise  to  that  nobility  whicb  is  an  acci- 
dent of  birth,  and  no  asylum  in  society 
from  the  overbearing  liaiightiness  of  offi- 
cial and  court  privilege  ?  There  would  be 
a  tyranny  of  ill-endowed  aristocrats — the 
more  tyrannical  in  proportion  as  they  were 
more  brutal ; — and  a  chasm  between  them 
and  the  people — between  them  and  hum- 
ble-born merit,  which,  if  not  crossed  by 
the  bridge  of  a  revolution,  would  engulf 
them  in  the  darkness  of  feudal  barbarism. 
Now,  there  is  a  republic  in  the  heart  of 
monarchical  England— fcLshion,  ruled  by  the 
manifest  stamp  of  superiority.  There  is  a 
republic  in  the  heart  of  monarchical  France 
—fashion^  ruled  by  wit  and  intellect.  These 
are  intermediate  powers  inseparable  from 
a  state  of  high  civilization,  let  the  govern- 
ment be  what  it  will.  Under  the  two 
hoary  monarchies  just  named,  they  are 
a  check  to  the  tyranny  of  rank,  the  inso- 
lence of  wealth  and  the  pomposity  of  the 
court — to  all  of  which  intolerable  evils  the 
smile  or  frown  of  fashion  is  wholesomely 
and  triumphantly  paramount.  But  have 
we  no  work  for  Fashion  to  do  in  America  ? 
Are  there  no  monsters  to  be  put  down  by 
a  combination  of  refinement  and  intellect? 
Have  we  no  evils  in  our  system  of  society, 
no  oppressions,  likely  to  get  the  upper 
hand  of  a  republic,  and  for  which  we  need 
therefore  the  well-tried  countercheck  of 
fashion  1 

Rank — we  have  none  to  contend  against. 
Court  favor,  as  dispensed  at  Washington, 
makes  no  man  formidable.  The  influence 
of  mere  wealth,  as  I  have  already  said,  is 
evidently  on  the  wane — though  were  it  not 
80,  the  tyranny  of  a  sordid  aristocracy  of 
money  might  indeed  call  for  a  well-armed 
antagonist.  A  monster  there  is,  however, 
reigning  over  this  country,  strange  to  say, 
in  the  shape  of  its  greatest  blessing — a 
monster  it  would  scarce  be  safe  to  name, 
without  first  unmasking  and  showing  his 
deformity,  and,  for  this  monster,  we  require 
the  check  that  can  alone  be  given  by  the 
combination  I  speak  of  as  fashion,  for  it  is 
the  only  shape  and  mouth-piece  he  will 
not  himself  usurp  and  turn  to  his  tyranni- 


cal uses.  Look  a  little  into  his  anatomy. 
To  how  many  men  in  a  hundred,  taken 
indiscriminately  from  the  miscellaneous 
population  of  New  York,  would  you  en- 
trust a  decision  upon  any  question  that 
affected  your  personal  position  or  happi- 
ness. Count  among  them  the  vicious,  the 
wilful,  the  ignorant  and  short-sighted, — 
who  are,  and  must  necessarily  be,  in  a 
great  metropolis  like  this,*  the  majority  in 
numbers.  In  the  capitals  of  other  coun- 
tries the  ignorant  and  vicious  classes  have 
little  or  no  moral  power — no  power  at  all, 
except  in  the  hand  to  hand  conflict  of  a 
revolution.  In  this  country  every  one  of 
them  forms  part  of  the  constituency  of  a 
newspaper  and  has  a  voice  as  loud  as  your 
own  on  all  questions  that  can  come  to  the 
threshold  of  public  notice.  With  such  a 
population  as  America  had  in  '76,  this 
level  suflfrage  of  opinion  was  the  heaven 
of  liberty.  Taking  the  country,  now,  from 
ocean  to  ocean,  it  is  so  still.  But  in  our 
great  cities — more  especially  in  our  great- 
est city — the  proportion  of  evil  in  the  popu- 
lation gives  danger  to  its  sovereign  impulse. 
Free  discussion  and  the  vigilance  of  patri- 
ots, may  control  it  on  great  questions,  and 
if  every  so-called  popular  impulse  were 
fairly  dragged  to  light,  and  known  by 
honest  counting  to  be  the  wish  of  the  ma- 
jority, it  would  be  still  more  effectually 
bridled.  But  no !  The  oracle  of  the  peo- 
ple finds  utterance  when  the  people  are 
asleep.  The  monster  I  have  not  yet  na- 
med is  enthroned  within  it,  and  it  is  he, 
and  not  the  people,  speaking  oftenest  in 
its  voice  of  thunder.  The  laws  are  palsied 
by  his  threat — private  character  trembles  in 
its  sanctuary — the  arts  and  all  the  interests 
of  taste  and  elegance  are  benumbed  and 
discournged,  and  while  the  public  is  a 
*'  chartered  libertine,"  the  individual  is  a 
slave,  for  no  man  dare  do  otherwise  than 
as  the  mass  approve,  for  fear  of  detraction 
and  outcry.  It  is  in  this  monster  that  envy 
and  ill-will,  and  the  natural  hatred  of  the 
low  and  vicious  for  those  above  them,  find 
a  ready  weapon  for  their  malice.  Desperate 
men  who  have  seen  better  days,  and  ty- 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


11 


rants  without  thrones,  of  whom  there  is 
never  a  lack  in  any  community  of  the 
earth,  are  the  ready  trumpeters  of  the  will 
of  this  many-eyed  monster.  And  now  shall 
I  tell  you  his  false  name  ?  Shall  I  tell  you 
what  lurks  in  the  shadow  of  liberty,  like 
oppression  behind  a  throne  of  a  monarch  7 
You  have  anticipated  it  by  my  description. 
It  is  unexamined,  unauthorized,  uncontrol- 
led PUBLIC  OPINION — the  monster  whose  false 
throat  claims  utterance  for  the  people.  The 
judge  on  the  bench  thinks  of  him  in  his 
verdict.  The  criminal  at  the  bar  trusts  him 
more  than  his  lawyer.  He  points  his  fin- 
ger, and  the  representative  of  the  people 
turns  bully  in  the  halls  of  legislation.  He 
stands  before  the  statesman — hiding  from 
him  the  page  of  history  and  posterity's  con- 
tempt. Women  dreads  him  on  her  pillow 
— for  detraction  is  his  most  appetizing  food. 
Religion  trembles  at  her  altar — for,  on  the 
ashes  of  the  house  of  God  he  avenges  an 
insult  to  his  myrmidons. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  shapes  so  palpable 
to  view  that  this  black  shadow  of  freedom 
stalks  through  a  republic.     There  is  a  tyr- 
ranny  of  public  opinion,  in  every  grade  and 
hiding-place  of  this  country — worn  so  ha- 
bitually as   to   be   thought   an   inseparable 
evil  of  human  society — worn  like  the  hair 
shirt  of  penance   till   its  irritation  has  be- 
come  a  habit  of  second  nature.     It  takes 
twice  as  bold  a  man  here  as  in  Europe,  to 
be  economical — twice  as  bold  a  man  to  pre- 
fer paying  a  debt  to  putting  his  name  to  a 
subscription.      We    put   ourselves  to  twice 
the  inconvenience  here,  that  people  in  Eu- 
rope  do,  to  seem  what  we  are  expected  to 
be  by  our  neighbors.     The  pain  and  morti- 
fication of  reducing  our  style   of  living  to 
suit   a   reduced   prosperity   in    business,    is 
twice,  here,  what  it  is  abroad — thrice  what 
it  need  be.     And  on  the  other  hand,  look 
at  the  invidious  criticism  and  malice  drawn 
upon  men  or  women,  by  any  step,  however 
well  it  can  be  afforded,  toward  embellishing 
their  condition  of  life.     We  do  not  live  in 
liberty,  here — we  do  not  spend  our  money 
or  enjoy  our  firesides  in   rational  freedom. 
The  country  is  free,  the  press  is  free,  reli- 


gion is  free,  and  public  opinion  remarkably 
free — but  the  individual  is  a  slave  !  The 
stab  of  Brutus  was  struck  at  nothing  half  so 
tyrannical  in  the  bosom  of  Cesar  as  our  des- 
potism— despotism  of  the  public  of  which 
we,  who  suffer,  severally  make  one.  Since 
government  was  first  invented,  the  most 
dreaded  evil  has  been  tyranny  in  the  sove- 
reign power.  In  a  monarchy  the  king 
holds  the  power,  and  the  people  and  pri- 
vate life  are  to  be  protected  against  the 
king.  In  a  republic  the  people  are  the 
sovereign,  and  the  laws  and  private  life 
are  to  be  protected  against  the  people. 
The  President  is  but  the  subservient  prime 
minister  of  the  sovereign  people.  His 
many-headed  master  never  loses  him  from^ 
his  sight  one  hour :  and  while  in  a  monar- 
chy there  is  an  appeal,  from  the  oppression 
of  the  king  to  the  vengeance  of  the  people, 
in  a  republic  there  is  no  appeal  from  op- 
pression but  to  God — for  who  can  impeach 
the  sovereign  people  ! 

You  may  think,  if  you  have  not  given 
me  your  close  attention  that  I  have  wan- 
dered from  my  subject.  But  no.  It  is  in 
my  subject — in  the  influence  of  a  circle  of 
acknowledged  fashion — that  I  see  a  release 
from  this  invisible  monster.  As  Leather- 
stocking  said  when  the  Prairie  was  burn- 
ing, "  fire  shall  fight  fire."  Opinion  from 
a  more  authentic  source,  shall  stem  and 
countercheck  opinion.  We  are  awed,  now, 
by  what  we  vaguely  suppose  the  public  to 
think.  Give  us  a  class  whose  opinion 
is  entitled  to  undeniable  weight — a  class 
whose  judgment  is  made  up  from  elevated 
standards — a  class  whose  favor  is  alike  valu- 
able to  the  ambitious  of  both  sexes — a  class 
it  is  important  to  know  and  propitiate  if 
possible,  but  at  any  rate  to  quote  as  un- 
questionable authority — and  the  evil  is  at 
once  abated.  The  most  radiant  feature  as 
well  as  the  most  salutary  principle  of  mo- 
dern civilization  is  the  organizing  in  France 
and  England  of  the  classes  I  have  descri- 
bed— umpires  between  tyranny  and  the 
people, — arbiters,  that  with  right  on  their 
side  are  stronger  than  the  despot.  As  I 
have  endeavored  to  show,  this  umpire  in 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


12 


England  is/ashiony  made  potent  by  the  up- 
holding of  nature's  aristocracy.  In  France 
it  is  fashion,  made  all  but  sovereign  in  its 
influence,  by  the  enlisting  of  intellect.  In 
our  country,  as  you  all  know,  the  class  that 
is  destined  to  protect  us  against  our  shape 
of  the  tyranny  universal  on  earth,  is  still 
unorganized,  and  the  locum  tenens,  the 
temporary  key  of  fashionable  superiority, 
is  showy  expensiveness.  But  this  anar- 
chy is  not  to  last — nor,  (I  trust  you  are 
prepared  to  agree  with  me,)  is  it  desirable 
that  it  should.  I  may  venture,  I  think,  to 
predict,  by  shadows  cast  before,  that  it  is 
on  the  eve,  now,  of  a  new  and  lasting  for- 
mation. 

But,  of  what  stuff  is  to  be  built  our  inner 
republic  1  Who,  in  our  great  metropolis,  is 
to  be  eligible  to  that  privileged  class  whose 
judgment  shall  rebuke  the  im weighed  opin- 
ions of  the  mass,  as  well  as  the  insolence 
of  overbearing  wealth  and  authority.  The 
material  lies  about  us  in  prodigal  abun- 
dance. We  have  intellect,  of  God's  purest 
kindling,  burning  before  our  eyes  like  stars 
before  our  closed  windows  in  the  last  watch 
before  morning.  We  have  nature's  nobility 
— men  of  such  spirit  and  bearing,  and  wo- 
men of  such  talent  and  beauty,  as  would 
draw  homage  alike  from  the  Indian  on  the 
Prairie,  or  the  exchisives  at  Almack's.  We 
have  master-spirits — men  who  possess  the 
unaccountable,  but  lordly,  power  of  control 
over  popular  masses — capable  of  swaying 
the  most  important  flood-tides  of  the  politi- 
cal sea,  yet  not  capable  of  giving  influence 
or  fashion  to  their  families,  or  the  circles 
they  live  in.  We  have  every  degree,  range, 
and  quality,  of  material  for  fashion,  in  as 
great  abundance  as  any  country  on  earth. 
And  now,  of  what  stuff,  I  ask  again,  is  to 
be  moulded  our  fashionable  republic — what 
class  of  superiority  is  to  be  set  up  for  our 
umpire — counterpoise,  to  protect  the  sub- 
ject individual  against  the  sovereign  people  1 

In  this  question  the  whole  country  has  a 
voice.  With  the  rapid  and  facile  inter- 
course between  our  cities,  and  with  our 
singularly  gregarious  habits — the  distin- 
guished of  all  the  cities  of  the  union,  com- 


ing frequently  together—every  society  in 
the  country  can  influence  the  character  of 
aristocracy  in  the  metropolis.  That  me- 
tropolis is  the  great  throbbing  heart  in 
whose  pulsations  the  distant  hand  and  foot 
have  sympathy  and  influence.  It  was  time 
— high  time — that  attention  was  called  to 
the  quality  of  the  blood  at  this  heart  of 
our  country.  We  have  kept  our  vigils  on 
all  other  subjects — we  have  slept  at  our 
watch  over  this!  The  first  beat  of  this 
chronic  pulse  may  be  regulated,  easily  and 
irresistibly,  by  public  volition.  The  fear  is 
that  the  wrong  elements  may  creep  in- 
sensibly uppermost,  and  ossify  into  power 
without  moulding  or  controlling!  It  was 
time,  I  say,  that  it  should  become  a  ques- 
tion of  lively  agitation, — in  the  metropolis 
and  in  every  city  in  the  Union — of  what 
stuff  is  to  be  formed  the  coming  American 
aristocracy?  Discussion,  enquiry,  active 
ridicule  of  false  pretension,  and  generous 
approbation  of  that  which  is  truly  admi- 
rable, are  means — ample  means — in  our 
hands,  to  make  it  what  we  will.  Let  us 
beware,  however — for,  choose  what  we  will 
— do  homage  to  what  we  may,  as  worthy  of 
privilege  and  distinction — whatever  we  do 
choose — whatever  becomes  the  fashion,  with 
the  consequence  that  fashion  is  destined  to 
have, — accumulates  power  from  the  mo- 
ment of  taking  the  lead,  and  is  elevated  in 
character,  as  well  as  hedged  about  with 
protection  and  aggrandizement!  It  is  for 
the  general  vigilance — for  you,  on  your  part 
— to  say,  whether  high  morality  shall  be 
indispensable  to  fashion.  It  is  for  you  to 
say,  (and  these  are  important  questions) 
whether  political  rectitude  shall  give  con- 
sequence to  a  man  in  the  highest  circle, 
or  whether  men  who  value  consequence 
and  position,  shall  dare  to  meddle  with 
politics  at  all.  In  short,  whether  the  "  al- 
mighty dollar" — whether  intellect,  as  shown 
in  wit  or  conversation,  or  as  shown  in 
the  arts,  the  press  and  the  professions — 
whether  official  rank,  or  manifest  superi- 
ority, as  stamped  by  nature  on  strength 
and  beauty — whether  one,  or  any  com- 
bination  of  these,   is  to  be  the  confessed 


13 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


title    to   American    aristocracy,   is    yet    to 
be  decided. 

I  liave  discoursed  more  gravely  of  fashion 
than  was  perhaps  anticipated — less  amuse- 
mgly  and  more  gravely  than  I  might  have 
done,  it  is  certain.  Fashion  is  a  trifling 
word,  and  there  are  those  to  whom  words 
never  change  meaning  or  value.  Import- 
ant as  it  may  become,  too,  in  the  aggre- 
gate, fashion  is  known,  and  contributed  to, 
by  what  the  wise  call  trifles.  Trifles  they 
are — and  so  are  the  foam-bubbles  on  the  ad- 
vancing wave  !  But  that  glittering  crest  is 
no  more  certain  to  be  the  rider  upon  a  tide, 
fetterless  and  resistless,  than  are  the  trifles 
of  fashion  the  precursors  of  a  powerful  ele- 
ment, surging  in,  at  this  hour,  upon  the  yet 
incomplete  character  of  our  country.  Shall 
we  be  indifferent  to  the  beauty  or  the  de- 
formity, the  viciousness  or  the  healthful- 
ness  of  this  impending  aristocracy?  Is  it 
not  worth  while — momentously  worth  while 
— to  arrest  its  presuming  avatar,  outside  the 
citadel  of  power,  and  challenge  its  authori- 
ty from  God  and  reason  !  I  may  give  it  you 
as  my  opinion,  that  aristocracy  in  a  re- 
public must  needs  be  more  powerful  than 
those  of  monarchies,  limited  or  despotic — 
for  it  must  fight  the  Avhole  battle  of  superi- 
ority, unaided  by  rank,  prejudice  or  long 
usage.  Its  formation  were  inevitable  at 
this  stage  of  our  progress,  even  were  we 
alone  in  the  world — for  there  is  no  high 
civilization  without  it — but  we  are  borrow- 
ing, as  I  said  before,  the  social  usages,  as 


well  as  the  fashions  and  luxuries,  of  the 
countries  over  the  water — borrowing  forms 
and  laws  of  aristocracy  faster  than  fashions 
or  luxuries.  And  is  not  this  a  matter  of 
interest  to  the  public  ?  "  Where  lies  pow- 
er?" "Where  are  the  combinations  that 
hold  power?"  are  questions  for  the  patriot 
and  statesman — questions  answered,  Avide 
of  the  mark,  by  the  hackneyed  divisions  of 
political  economy.  '*  Church  and  state," 
"  rich  and  poor,"  "  King,  Lords  and  Com- 
mons," give  no  clue  to  the  power  para- 
mount in  England — the  well-organized 
mastery  of  fashion !  Let  no  man  think  it 
impossible  that  a  class  designated  by  so 
trifling  a  word  as  fashion,  may  soon  crowd 
mammon  from  our  altars,  and  become  the 
antagonists  of  ill  -begotten,  public  opinion, 
and  the  oracle  of  all  that  affects  the  indi- 
vidual. This,  I  repeat  again,  is  the  coming 
epoch  in  our  social  history.  Thus  far — to 
this  level  of  preparation  for  an  aristocracy — 
America  has  built  her  pyamid  of  civiliza- 
tion— overtaking  astonished  Europe,  cen- 
turies in  a  day.  To  top  this  pyramid — 
to  complete  our  broad-based  and  towering 
republic,  we  have  a  class  to  create — a 
summit-stone  to  lay — to  which  we  can 
point  without  shame  or  hesitation,  when 
it  is  lifted  to  the  scrutiny  of  the  world. 
Thank  God,  we  have  yet  the  time  and 
opportunity  to  decide,  from  what  quarry 
it  shall  be  hewn,  and  to  what  mortar  of 
public  sentiment  it  shall  owe  its  stability! 


lOTE. 


It  may  amuse  the  reader  to  quote  a  chap- 
ter from  one  of  the  serious  works  on  the 
fashions  referred  to  in  the  beginning  of  the 
Lecture.  "  THE  SIMPLE  COBBLER  OF 
AG  AW  AM,"  the  work  from  which  it  was 
taken,  was  a  classic  of  the  sixteenth  century, 
written  by  a  New  England  emigrant  clergy- 
man. Rev.  Nathaniel  Ward.  He  thus  dis- 
courses of  the  lady- fashions  of  New-England 
of  that  day  : — 


"  Should  I  not  keepe  promise  in  speaking 
a  little  to  Womens  fashions,  they  would 
take  it  unkindly  :  I  was  loath  to  pester  bet- 
ter matter  with  such  stuffe ;  I  rather  thought 
it  meet  to  let  them  stand  by  themselves,  like 
the  Quce  Genus  in  the  Grammar,  being  Defi- 
cients, or  Redundants,  not  to  be  brought 
under  any  Rule  :  I  shall  therefore  make  bold 
for  this  once,  to  borrow  a  little  of  their  loose 
tongued  Liberty,  and  mispend  a  word  or 
two  upon  their  long-wasted,  but  short-skirted 


14 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY, 


\^ 


patience  :  a  little  use  of  my  stirrup  will  do 
no  harine. 

Ridentem  dicere  rcrwm,  quid  prohibet  ? 

Gray  Gravity  it  aelfe  can  well  bcteam, 
That  Limguage  be  adapted  to  the  Theme. 
He  that  to  Parrots  speaks,  must  parrotize: 
He  that  instructs  a  foole,  may  act  th*  unwise. 

.^  It  is  known  more  then  enough  that  I  am 
Jieither  Nignrd,  nor  Cinick,  to  the  due 
bravery  of  the  true  Gentry  :  if  any  man  mis- 
likes  a  bully  mongdrossock  more  then  I,  let 
him  take  her  for  his  labour:  I  honour  the 
woman  that  can  honour  her  selfe  with  her 
attire ;  a  good  Text  alwayes  deserves  a  fair 
Margent:  I  am  not  much  offended  if  I  see  a 
trimme,  far  trimmer  than  she  that  wears  it : 
in  a  word,  whatever  Christianity  or  Civility 
will  allow,  I  can  afford  with  London  mea- 
sure: but  when  I  heare  a  nugiperous  Gentle- 
dame  inquire  what  dresse  the  Queen  is  in 
this  week  :  what  tlie  nudiustertian  fashion 
of  the  Court  is ;  I  meane  the  very  newest : 
with  egge  to  be  in  it  in  all  haste,  w^hat  ever 
it  be  ;  I  look  at  her  as  the  very  gizzard  of  a 
trifle,  the  product  of  a  quarter  of  a  cypher, 
the  epitome  of  nothing,  fitter  to  be  kickt,  if 
shee  were  of  a  kickable  substance,  than 
either  honour'd  or  humour'd. 

To  speak  moderately,  I  truly  confesse,  it 
is  beyond  the  ken  of  my  understanding  to 
conceive,  how  those  women  should  have 
any  true  grace,  or  valuable  vertue,  that  have 
so  little  wit,  as  to  disfigure  themselves  with 
such  exotick  garbes,  as  not  only  dismantles 
their  native  lovely  lustre,  but  transclouts 
them  into  gant  bar-geese,  ill-shapen-shotten- 
shell-fish,  Egyptian  Hyeroglyphicks,  or  at 
the  best  into  French  flurts  of  the  pastery, 
which  a  proper  English  woman  should 
scorne  with  her  heels :  it  is  no  marvell  they 
weare  drailes  on  the  hinder  part  of  their 
heads,  having  nothing  as  it  seems  in  the 
fore -part,  but  a  few  Squirrils  brains  to  help 
them  frisk  from  one  ill-favourM  fashion  to 
another. 

These  whimm'  Crown'd  sheas,  these  fashion-fancying  wits. 
Are  empty  thin  brain'd  shells,  and  fiddling  Kits. 

The  very  troublers  and  impoverishers  of 
mankind,  I  can  hardly  forbear  to  commend 
to  the  world  a  saying  of  a  Lady  living  some- 


time with  the  Queen  of  Bohemia^  I  know 
not  where  shee  found  it,  but  it  is  pitty  it 
should  be  lost. 

The  World  is  full  of  care,  much  like  unto  a  bubble ; 
Women  and  care,  and  care  and  women,  and  women  and 
care  and  trouble. 

The  Verses  are  even  enough  for  such  odde 
pegma's.  I  can  make  my  selfe  sicke  at  any 
time,  with  comparing  the  dazzling  splender 
wherewith  our  Gentlewomen  were  embel- 
lished in  some  former  habits,  with  the  gnt- 
foundrcd  goosdom,  wherewith  they  are  now 
surcingled  and  debauched.  Wee  have  about 
five  or  six  of  them  in  our  Colony :  if  I  see 
any  of  them  accidentally,  I  cannot  cleanse 
my  phansie  of  them  for  a  moneth  after.  I 
have  been  a  solitary  widdower  almost  twelve 
yeares,  purposed  lately  to  make  a  step  over 
to  my  Native  Country  for  a  yoke -fellow : 
but  when  I  consider  how  women  there  have 
tripe-wifed  themselves  with  their  cladments, 
I  have  no  heart  to  the  voyage,  least  their 
nauseous  shapes  and  the  Sea,  should  work 
too  sorely  upon  my  stomach.  I  speak  sad- 
ly ;  me  thinkes  it  should  breake  the  hearts 
of  Englishmen  to  see  so  many  goodly  Eng- 
lish-women imprisoned  in  French  Cages, 
peering  out  of  their  hood-holes  for  some  men 
of  mercy  to  help  them  with  a  little  wit,  and 
no  body  relieves  them. 

It  is  a  more  common  then  convenient 
saying,  that  nine  Taylors  make  a  man  :  it 
were  well  if  nineteene  could  make  a  woman 
to  her  minde  :  if  Taylors  were  men  indeed, 
well  furnished  but  with  meer  morall  princi- 
ples, they  would  disdain  to  be  led  about  like 
Apes,  by  such  mymick  Marmosets.  It  is  a 
most  unworthy  thing,  for  men  that  have 
bones  in  them,  to  spend  their  lives  in 
making  fidle-cases  for  futilous  womens  phan- 
sies  ;  which  are  the  very  pettitoes  of  infirmi- 
ty, the  gyblets  of  perquisquilian  to)^es.  I 
am  so  charitable  to  think,  that  most  of  that 
mystery  would  worke  the  cheerfuller  while 
they  live,  if  they  might  bee  well  discharged 
of  the  tyring  slavery  of  mis-tyring  wome.n  : 
it  is  no  little  labour  to  be  continually  putting 
up  English-women  into  Out-landish  caskes  : 
who  if  they  be  not  shifted  anew,  once  in  a 
few  moneths,  grow  too  sowre  for  their  Hus- 


LECTURE  ON  FASHION. 


15 


bands.  What  this  Trade  will  answer  for 
themselves  when  God  shall  take  measure 
of  Taylors  consciences  is  beyond  my  skill  to 
imagine.     There  was  a  time  when 

The  joyning  of  the  Red-Rose  with  the  White, 
Did  set  our  State  into  a  Damask  plight. 

But  now  our  Roses  are  turned  to  Flore  de 
licesj  our  Carnations  to  Tulips,  our  Gilli- 
llowers  to  Dayzes,  our  City-Dames,  to  an 
indenominable  Qusemalry  of  overturcas'd 
things.  Hee  that  makes  Coates  for  the 
Moone,  had  need  take  measure  every  noone; 
and  he  that  makes  for  women,  as  often,  to 
keepe  them  from  Lunacy. 

I  have  often  heard  divers  Ladies  vent 
loud  feminine  complaints  of  the  wearisome 
varieties  and  chargable  changes  of  fashions  : 
I  marvell  themselves  preferre  not  a  Bill  of 
redresse.  I  would  Essex  Ladies  would  lead 
the  Chore,  for  the  honour  of  their  County 
and  persons ;  or  rather  the  thrice  honoura- 
ble Ladies  of  the  Court,  whom  it  best  be- 
seemcs  :  who  may  well  presume  of  a  Le  Roy 
le  veult  from  our  sober  King,  a  Les  Seigneurs 
ont  Assentus  from  our  prudent  Peers,  and  the 
like  Assentus  from  our  considerate,  I  dare 
not  say  wife-worne  Commons:  who  I  believe 
had  much  rather  passe  one  such  Bill,  than 
pay  so  many  Taylors  Bills  as  they  are  forced 
to  doe. 

Most  deare  and  unparallel'd  Ladies,  be 
pleased  to  attempt  it :  as  you  have  the  pre- 
cellency  of  the  women  of  the  world  for 
beauty  and  feature  ;  so  assume  the  honour 
to  give,  and  not  take  Law  from  any,  in  mat- 
ter of  attire  :  if  ye  can  transact  so  faire  a 
motion  among  yourselves  unanimously,  I 
dare  say,  they  that  most  renite,  will  least 
repent.  What  greater  honour  can  your 
Honors  desire,  then  to  build  a  Promontory 
president  to  all  foraigne  Ladies,  to  deserve 
so  eminently  at  the  hands  of  all  the  English 
Gentry  present  and  to  come  :  and  to  confute 
the  opinion  of  all  the  wise  men  in  the 
world  ;  who  never  thought  it  possible  for 
women  to  doe  so  good  a  work  ? 

If  any  man  think  I  have  spoken  rather 
merrily  than  seriously  he  is  much  mistaken, 
I  have  written  what  I  write  with  all  the 
indignation  I  can,  and  no  more  than  I  ought. 


I  confesse  I  veer'd  my  tongue  to  this  kinde 
of  Language  de  industria  though  unwill- 
ingly, supposing  those  I  speak  to  are  unca- 
pable  of  grave  and  rationall  arguments. 

I  desire  all  Ladies  and  Gentlewomen  to 
understand  that  all  this  while  I  intend  not 
such  as  through  necessary  modesty  to  avoyd 
morose  singularity,  follow  fashions  slowly,  a 
flight  shot  or  two  off,  shewing  by  their  mo- 
deration, that  they  rather  draw  counter- 
mont  with  their  hearts,  then  put  on  by  their 
examples. 

I  point  my  pen  only  against  the  light- 
heel'd  beagles  that  lead  the  chase  so  fast, 
that  they  run  all  civility  out  of  breath; 
against  these  Ape-headed  pullets,  which 
invent  Antique  foole-fangles,  meerly  for 
fashion  and  novelty  sake. 

In  a  word,  if  I  begin  once  to  declaime 
against  fashions,  let  men  and  women  look 
well  about  them,  there  is  somewhat  in  the 
businesse  ;  I  confesse  to  the  world,  I  never 
had  grace  enough  to  be  strict  in  that  kinde  ; 
and  of  late  years,  I  have  found  syrrope  of 
pride  very  wholesome  in  a  due  Bos,  which 
makes  mee  keep  such  a  store  of  that  drugge 
by  me,  that  if  any  body  comes  to  me  for  a 
question-full  or  two  about  fashions,  they 
never  complain  of  me  for  giving  them  hard 
measure,  or  under- weight. 

But  I  addresse  my  selfe  to  those  who  can 
both  hear  and  mend  all  if  they  please  :  I 
seriously  feare,  if  the  pious  Parliament  doe 
not  find  a  time  to  state  fashions,  as  ancient 
Parliaments  have  done  in  some  part,  God 
will  hardly  finde  a  time  to  state  Religion  or 
Peace  :  They  are  the  surquedr37^es  of  pride, 
the  wanton nesse  of  idlenesse,  provoking 
sins,  the  certain  prodormies  of  assured  judge- 
ment, Zeph.  1.  7,  8. 

It  is  beyond  all  account,  how  many  Gcn- 
tlemens  and  Citizens  estates  are  deplumed 
by  their  feather-headed  wives,  w^hat  usefull 
supplies  the  pannage  of  England  woukl 
afford  other  Countries,  what  rich  returnes  to 
it  selfe,  if  it  were  not  slic'd  out  into  male 
and  female  fripperies  :  and  what  a  multi- 
tude of  misimploy'd  hands,  might  be  better 
improv'd  in  some  more  manly  Manufactures 
for  the  publique  weale  :  it  is  not  easily  ere- 


16 


THE  MIRROR  LIBRARY. 


dible,  what  may  be  said  of  the  preterplural- 
itiea  of  Taylors  in  London  :  I  have  heard  an 
honest  man  say,  that  not  long  since  there 
were  numbered  between  Tempie-barre  and 
Charing-Crosscy  eight  thousand  of  that 
Trade  :  let  it  be  conjectured  by  that  propor- 
tion how  many  there  are  in  and  about  Lon- 
don^ and  in  all  England,  they  will  appeare 
to  be  very  numerous.  If  the  Parliament 
would  please  to  mend  women,  which  their 
Husbands  dare  not  doe,  there  need  not  so 
many  men  to  make  and  mend  as  there  are. 
I  hope  the  present  dolefuU  estate  of  the 
Realme,  will  perswade  more  strongly  to 
some  considerate  course  herein,  than  I  now 
can. 

Knew  I  how  to  bring  it  in,  I  would  speak 
a  word  to  long  haire,  whereof  I  will  say  no 
more  but  this  :  if  God  proves  not  such  a 
Barbor  to  it  as  he  threatens,  unlesse  it  be 
amended,  Esa.  7.  20.  before  the  Peace  of 
the  State  and  Church  be  well  setled,  then 
let  my  prophcsie  be  scorned,  as  a  sound 
ininde  scornes  the  ryot  of  that  sin,  and  more 
it  needs  not.     If  those  who  are  termed  Rat- 


tle-heads and  Impuritans,  would  take  np  a 
Resolution  to  begin  in  moderation  of  haire, 
to  the  just  reproach  of  those  that  are  called 
Puritans  and  Round-heads,  I  would  honour 
their  manlinesse,  as  much  as  the  others  god- 
linesse,  so  long  as  I  knew  what  man  or 
honour  meant:  if  neither  can  find  a  Bar- 
hours  shop,  let  them  turne  in,  to  Psal.  68. 
21.  Jer,  7.  29.  1  Cor.  11. 14.  if  it  be  thought 
no  wisdome  in  men  to  distinguish  them- 
selves in  the  field  by  the  Scissers,  let  it  bee 
thought  no  injustice  in  God,  not  to  distin- 
guish them  by  the  Sword.  I  had  rather  God 
should  know  me  by  my  sobriety,  than  mine 
enemy  not  know  me  by  my  vanity.  He  is 
ill  kept,  that  is  kept  by  his  owne  sin.  A 
short  promise  is  a  farre  safer  guard  than  a 
long  lock :  it  is  an  ill  distinction  which  God 
is  loth  to  looke  at,  and  his  Angels  cannot 
know  his  Saints  by.  Though  it  be  not  the 
mark  of  the  Beast,  yet  it  may  be  the  mark 
of  a  beast  prepared  to  slaughter.  I  am  sure 
men  use  not  to  weare  such  manes ;  I  am 
also  sure  Souldiers  use  to  weare  other  mark- 
lets  or  notadoes  in  time  of  battell. 


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